release date: Oct. 20, 2009
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,72]
producer: Andrew Weatherall
label: ATP Recordings - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Surf Solar" - 3. "The Lisbon Maru" - 4. "Olympians" - 6. "Space Mountain" - 7. "Flight of the Feathered Serpent"
2nd studio album by the electronic duo-project Fuck Buttons by Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power [Blanck Mass] follows 1½ year after a promising start with Street Horrrsing (Mar. 2008).
Tarot Sport is like the predecessor instrumental progressive electronica but where the debut had a link to post-rock, this one goes bolder electronic, passing from drone to progressive and then adding elements from minimal techno and glitch pop.
Tarot Sport was met by positive reviews, thus ending up on many music magazines' top-10 lists of albums of the year.
Although, it wasn't an immediate favourite of mine, I find it much more than just ordinary and with something extra to offer. For one thing, the album appears more of an original whole than their debut, which both appeared as a fine experiment but also felt bonded to familiar inspirational sources. Tarot Sport, on the other hand, comes out even more experimental, displaying some quite interesting beats and sounds, which almost takes it into the dance arena, and then there's an industrial tone lurking as a backbone on all tracks. You could aply most of that for the debut, but where that appeared like a experiment pointing in various directions, this one appears more as a coherent work with a founding sound. It's quite spacious but also quite strict in its soundscape, which would nearly be too blatant as a soundtrack for a movie about transportation in space.
The album has proved to be a certified grower. At first I found it so-so - thinking: possibly above 3 - then, uhm, yeah... not bad, actually! - reevaluating: clearly above 3,3 to 3,5-ish - and then one day I found myself listening to it at pretty high volume driving alone in my car on a motorway, while thinking: Now, how could I miss how good this is?! It's definitely quite spectacular isn't?! I really like the bolder use of drum beats, and one day I may eventually hand it a 4.
